Quotes About Spain

it was even said that Dolores Ibárruri, La Pasionaria, had bitten the jugular of a priest;

The Catholic Church was the bulwark of the country's conservative forces, the foundation of what the right defined as Spanish civilization. Not surprisingly, the outside world had a fixed impression of Spain as a deeply religious country. The jest of the Basque philosopher Unamuno, that in Spain even atheists were Catholic, was taken seriously. Centuries of fanatical superstition enforced by the Inquisition had engraved this image on European minds.

England's diplomatic service had always been skeletal and underfunded; many ambassadors treated their papers as their personal property, so documentation from the past was far more patchy than in France or Spain, a problem exacerbated by the disruption of the Interregnum.

Conquest and Inquisition—parallel phenomena, products of Spain's imposing vices.

yo he oído decir a muchos seglares españoles de muchos años acá e muchas veces, no pudiendo negar la bondad que en ellos veen: "cierto, estas gentes eran las más bienaventuradas del mundo, si solamente conoscieran a Dios".

I have the most evil memories of Spain, but I have very few bad memories of Spaniards.

For some reason, all the best matadors were Fascists.

I would sooner be a foreigner in Spain than in most countries. How easy it is to make friends in Spain!

Yet in the most mean, cowardly, hypocritical way the British ruling class did all they could to hand Spain over to Franco and the Nazis. Why? Because they were pro-Fascist, was the obvious answer.

It appeared that even in Barcelona there were hardly any bullfights nowadays; for some reason all the best matadors were Fascists.

The POUM] posters, designed for a wider public (posters are important in Spain, with its large illiterate population).

Certainly the Andalusians were very ignorant. Few if any of them could read, and they seemed not even to know the one thing that everybody knows in Spain—which political party they belonged to. They thought they were Anarchists, but were not quite certain; perhaps they were Communists.

In England, where the Press is more centralized and the public more easily deceived than elsewhere, only two versions of the Spanish war have had any publicity to speak of: the Right-wing version of Christian patriots versus Bolsheviks dripping with blood, and the Left-wing version of gentlemanly republicans quelling a military revolt. The central issue has been successfully covered up.

In the quiet back streets of Lérida and Barbastro I seemed to catch a momentary glimpse, a sort of far-off rumour of the Spain that dwells in everyone's imagination. White sierras, goatherds, dungeons of the Inquisition, Moorish palaces, black winding trains of mules, grey olive trees and groves of lemons, girls in black mantillas, the wines of Málaga and Alicante, cathedrals, cardinals, bull-fights, gypsies, serenades—in short, Spain.

it is somehow typical of Spain—of the flashes of magnanimity that you get from Spaniards in the worst of circumstances. I have the most evil memories of Spain, but I have very few bad memories of Spaniards. I only twice remember even being seriously angry with a Spaniard, and on each occasion, when I look back, I believe I was in the wrong myself. They have, there is no doubt, a generosity, a species of nobility, that do not really belong to the twentieth century.

In the English press this was translated into English terms and took this form: that arms were desperately needed on the Aragón front and could not be sent there because the unpatriotic Anarchists were holding them back. To put it like this is to ignore the conditions actually existing in Spain.

Cubism is a part of the daily life in Spain, it is in Spanish architecture. The architecture of other countries always follows the line of the landscape . . . but Spanish architecture always cuts the lines of the landscape.

Nature and man are opposed in Spain.

It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins.

The Confederations Cup is interesting. It served Spain very well to take part and then go on to win the 2010 World Cup. We knew the stadiums, the atmosphere, the conditions and also the difficulties of a tournament which simulated the World Cup format.

For Spain, the more I play, the more goals I score, the more chance I have of making the World Cup and starting games.

Winning the title in my first season at City was a dream come true, but the downside was not being selected for Spain's World Cup squad.

Once you pass by the high crests of the snow-capped Pyrenees and move to the wild shores of the very lowest tip of southwest France bordering Spain, you are in Basque country.

The big difference between league football in England and Spain is that more teams compete here. In Spain, it is usually only two teams going for the title, which is not necessarily a bad thing because you get great matches between the two, but I think the English league is better for being more competitive.